Complete Poetical Works - Bret Harte

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With darker tints than those Aurora spread.

       Though shorn his rays, his welcome disk concealed

       In the dim smoke that veiled each battlefield,

       Still striving upward, in meridian pride,

       He climbed the walls that East and West divide—

       Saw his bright face flashed back from golden sand,

       And sapphire seas that lave the Western land.

       Strange was the contrast that such scenes disclose

       From his high vantage o'er eternal snows;

       There War's alarm the brazen trumpet rings—

       Here his love-song the mailed cicala sings;

       There bayonets glitter through the forest glades—

       Here yellow cornfields stack their peaceful blades;

       There the deep trench where Valor finds a grave—

       Here the long ditch that curbs the peaceful wave;

       There the bold sapper with his lighted train—

       Here the dark tunnel and its stores of gain;

       Here the full harvest and the wain's advance—

       There the Grim Reaper and the ambulance.

       With scenes so adverse, what mysterious bond

       Links our fair fortunes to the shores beyond?

       Why come we here—last of a scattered fold—

       To pour new metal in the broken mould?

       To yield our tribute, stamped with Caesar's face,

       To Caesar, stricken in the market-place?

       Ah! love of country is the secret tie

       That joins these contrasts 'neath one arching sky;

       Though brighter paths our peaceful steps explore,

       We meet together at the Nation's door.

       War winds her horn, and giant cliffs go down

       Like the high walls that girt the sacred town,

       And bares the pathway to her throbbing heart,

       From clustered village and from crowded mart.

       Part of God's providence it was to found

       A Nation's bulwark on this chosen ground;

       Not Jesuit's zeal nor pioneer's unrest

       Planted these pickets in the distant West,

       But He who first the Nation's fate forecast

       Placed here His fountains sealed for ages past,

       Rock-ribbed and guarded till the coming time

       Should fit the people for their work sublime;

       When a new Moses with his rod of steel

       Smote the tall cliffs with one wide-ringing peal,

       And the old miracle in record told

       To the new Nation was revealed in gold.

       Judge not too idly that our toils are mean,

       Though no new levies marshal on our green;

       Nor deem too rashly that our gains are small,

       Weighed with the prizes for which heroes fall.

       See, where thick vapor wreathes the battle-line;

       There Mercy follows with her oil and wine;

       Or where brown Labor with its peaceful charm

       Stiffens the sinews of the Nation's arm.

       What nerves its hands to strike a deadlier blow

       And hurl its legions on the rebel foe?

       Lo! for each town new rising o'er our State

       See the foe's hamlet waste and desolate,

       While each new factory lifts its chimney tall,

       Like a fresh mortar trained on Richmond's wall.

       For this, O brothers, swings the fruitful vine,

       Spread our broad pastures with their countless kine:

       For this o'erhead the arching vault springs clear,

       Sunlit and cloudless for one half the year;

       For this no snowflake, e'er so lightly pressed,

       Chills the warm impulse of our mother's breast.

       Quick to reply, from meadows brown and sere,

       She thrills responsive to Spring's earliest tear;

       Breaks into blossom, flings her loveliest rose

       Ere the white crocus mounts Atlantic snows;

       And the example of her liberal creed

       Teaches the lesson that to-day we heed.

       Thus ours the lot with peaceful, generous hand

       To spread our bounty o'er the suffering land;

       As the deep cleft in Mariposa's wall

       Hurls a vast river splintering in its fall—

       Though the rapt soul who stands in awe below

       Sees but the arching of the promised bow,

       Lo! the far streamlet drinks its dews unseen,

       And the whole valley wakes a brighter green.

       Table of Contents

      And you are the poet, and so you want

       Something—what is it?—a theme, a fancy?

       Something or other the Muse won't grant

       To your old poetical necromancy;

       Why, one half you poets—you can't deny—

       Don't know the Muse when you chance to meet her,

       But sit in your attics and mope and sigh

       For a faineant goddess to drop from the sky,

       When flesh and blood may be standing by

       Quite at your service, should you but greet her.

       What if I told you my own romance?

       Women are poets, if you so take them,

       One third poet—the rest what chance

       Of man and marriage may choose to make them.

       Give me ten minutes before you go—

       Here at the window we'll sit together,

       Watching the currents that ebb and flow;

       Watching the world as it drifts below

       Up the hot Avenue's dusty glow:

       Isn't it pleasant, this bright June weather?

       Well, it was after the war broke out,

       And I was a schoolgirl fresh from Paris;

       Papa had contracts, and roamed about,

       And I—did nothing—for I was an heiress.

       Picked some lint, now I think; perhaps

       Knitted some stockings—a dozen nearly:

       Havelocks made for the soldiers' caps;

       Stood at fair-tables and peddled traps

       Quite at a profit. The "shoulder-straps"

       Thought I was pretty. Ah, thank you! really?

       Still it was stupid. Rata-tat-tat!

      

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